Observations placeholder

SPIRITUALISM: A NARRATIVE WITH A DISCUSSION.  BY PATRICK PROCTOR ALEXANDER, M.A.,

And now, as we seemed to be getting pretty well into the swing of the business, Mr. Home proceeded to exhibit, or more accurately speaking, evoke — if his own account is to be taken — phenomena of some interest. Two accordions were on the table, one of which he selected. The instrument, he explained, was not his, but the property of Dr. G (a gentleman present I had not before met, but very well known to me by reputation), who had been good enough to bring it with him.

This Dr. G confirmed ; and it is to be in fairness supposed he could scarce be mistaken as to its being his own accordion.

Had it, Mr. Home said, been his, it might of course have been said that its effects were produced by him — as indeed such was the usual explanation tendered of the whole business — by deft management of a subtle system of machinery secreted in it. As it was, he hoped that, in the present instance, there could scarce be any such suspicion.

So much premised, taking the instrument in one hand by the end unfurnished with keys, he put it under the table, and said that in a very short time we should probably begin to hear it play; — as accordingly, in a very short time, we did. It began almost immediately to emit sounds; and having begun, went on to play pretty briskly.

Guiding the instrument in his direction, Mr. Home then desired Dr. Findlater to go under the table, and, after careful examination, return and give an account of what he saw there. Dr. Findlater did so.

He remained some little time under the table, the accordion the while continuing to sound as before; and then resuming his chair, he reported that the instrument held motionless in Mr. Home's one hand — his other hand being, of course, all the time on the table — was moving and giving out sound, precisely as if it were worked by a hand at the other end of it ; whilst, to account for this phenomenon, not to be questioned, except in so far as his eyesight might be, nothing whatever was visible.

Mr. Home then guided the instrument over to me (his own account of the matter was, that the instrument moved as if at its own sweet will, and rather guided his hand than was guided by it), and going down to make strict examination of it, I came up in a little to report precisely as Dr. Findlater had before done. The accordion held motionless in Mr. Home's one hand at an angle of about forty-five degrees, was moving backward and forward, and continuing to play, just as if a couple of hands had been' manipulating it ; and to account for this, nothing was visible.

Meantime' there was no hint of a tune in the sounds produced : they made just such an aimless monotony as a child, let us say, might produce, amusing itself with the instrument.